Sainsbury’s slashes price of essential household item by up to 11% as inflation eases

Sainsbury’s is slashing the price of its own-brand toilet paper by up to 11% as the cost to make it has fallen for the first time in two years.

The falling wholesale costs has allowed the UK’s second-largest supermarket chain to drop the price, meaning savings can be passed on to customers, the retailer said.

Rhian Bartlett, food commercial director at Sainsbury’s, said: “The rate of grocery price inflation remains at a record high, which is why we are continuing to lower prices wherever we can on the food and household products our customers buy most often.

“After more than two years of inflation on the price of pulp, we are now seeing a decline which is enabling us to pass savings directly on to our customers and reduce the price of our own brand toilet roll.

The price cut comes after the supermarket reduced the prices of some of its lines of bread and butter in response to falling commodity prices.

It lowered the price of its own-brand 250g salted and unsalted butter by 5% to £1.89, and also cut the cost of its 800g Soft White Medium, Wholemeal Medium, Wholemeal Thick and Toastie White loaves of bread by 11% down to 75p.

Ms Bartlett, food commercial director at Sainsbury’s, said: “As we see the commodity prices starting to fall for wheat and butter, we’re able to lower our prices on two of the products people buy most often, bread and butter.

“We are committed to offering our customers the best value possible so they can be confident that they are getting a great deal on their everyday essentials when they shop with us.”

The Office for National Statistics said food inflation remained at 19.3%, down only slightly on March’s eye-watering 19.6%, but it still remains close to the highest rate for more than 45 years.

The Competition and Markets Authority has launched an investigation into high food and fuel prices to examine whether a "failure in competition" meant customers were overpaying for goods. Grocers have denied that they are profiteering, saying stores are working to keep prices “as low as possible”.

Sainsbury’s latest price cuts follow similar moves by rival supermarkets, with Tesco recently cutting the price of milk by at least 5p, followed by Aldi, Lidl and Asda.

Waitrose also announced it is reducing the price of more than 200 products to help customers make savings.

It said products that now have lowered prices include butter, tomato ketchup and golden caster sugar, as well as salads and ice cream, with half of the products now at least 10% cheaper.